Assad: Peace with Israel just after return of all occupied Syrian lands

Published August 1st, 2007 - 15:47 GMT

Peace with Israel will only come with the return of all occupied Syrian lands, President Bashar Assad repeated Wednesday.

Peace with Israel will only come with the return of all occupied Syrian lands, President Bashar Assad repeated Wednesday. "Our desire for peace does not mean at all abandoning our rights," Assad said in a televised speech to mark the Syrian national army day.

"Syria's leadership, people and military will only accept the full return of the Golan Heights," he said, according to the AP. The Heights were occupied by Israel during the 1967 war.

"Syria is committed to its stances and determined to restore the whole occupied lands, because the land is a matter of sovereignty, dignity and rights," al-Assad added in a message to the army written in the magazine of the People's Army.

"The region has witnessed dangerous changes in the latest years… these changes have stormed the whole region and its countries… as a result of hegemony trend of some superpowers… and though continuous tragedies stemmed by those events… they gave a number of facts.. On top the victory of national resistance way and the consolidation of freedom and life will.. The fact that made projects of occupation and hegemony fail," the Syrian leader said.